The Emotion Whose Shade is the Most Violent of Colours
by Marie Meyers
Summary: Man alive, it hurt. It was so indescribable. He couldn't think. He couldn't keep his head high or stand tall. It gripped him mercilessly, threatened his resolve. He felt himself spiraling, maimed by the one thing that was supposed to bring him healing. Frary. Set after ep. 1.09 of Reign.


Title: **The Emotion Whose Shade is the Most Violent of Colours**

Summary: _Man alive, it hurt. It was so indescribable. He couldn't think. He couldn't keep his head high or stand tall. It gripped him mercilessly, threatened his resolve. He felt himself spiraling, maimed by the one thing that was supposed to bring him healing. Frary. Set after ep. 1.09 of __**Reign**__._

Characters: Francis

Genre: Angst/Drama/Hurt/Romance

Disclaimer/ Letter from the Author: I couldn't wait for _Reign_ to air, and watched it online. And wowza. Dude. That is all I can say.

That episode is crazy. Crazy. And so heartbreaking. I found myself feeling really bad for Francis. The poor guy! And the last scene they shot of him standing before his loved ones, displaying a final act of courage...it spoke to the hopeless romantic inside me.

So here we are with this fanfiction! I have to get it out my system now. I was working on Francis' ark in The Petals that Fall, and writing out his confrontation with Olivia. Seems like in both literature and media, Francis is ending up hurt. :/.

I feel bad for him.

Goshh, this episode. I need to get all these feels out my system! Gah. I'm going to write so much _Reign_ stuff.

I'm sure most of you know the drill by now, but nonetheless, _Reign_ and its characters are the property of Laurie McCarthy and the CW. However this plot idea is mine. Please ask permission before any reprint or use of this fanfiction. Also, remember to review.

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**The Emotion Whose Shade is the Most Violent of Colours**

_| Love, it is what cripples, turns strength into weakness, and life into death. Just how many wars has had it be their cause? For it had not been moral difference that led those rulers to rise against one another, but the gentle prowess of a woman. |_

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Walking away was the hardest thing he had ever done. Holding his head high and trying to keep himself from grabbing Mary in his arms. From kissing her so passionately that threats from his mother and father, prophesies from Normstradamus, and the existence of his brother faded far from her mind. He kept his arms at his sides and his hands balled in tight fists to keep himself from running back to her. Asking her to marry him all over again. Bedding her again until she remembered the things he made her feel.

Francis felt nothing. Nothing but sorrow. Nothing but unhappiness.

He loved her. He _loved_ her. He loved her so much, with every part of him. It was different than what he had once felt with Olivia. It was more than that. So much more, painfully and impossibly so. Mary was -

_she was roses laid upon him. Laid upon the lid of his casket. Beautiful. A bittersweet damnation. The touch upon gifted upon him that added color to his paling complexion and dying soul. _

He could still feel her in his arms; Francis could still feel himself inside her. The soft caress of her raven tresses entangled against the pads of his fingers; the gentle adoration she gave his body as her lips feathered across his skin.

And her cries; her pleasure ringing loudly in his ears as they made love in the night, the dark of the evening blanketing them, consecrating their indecent act as one of passion, proven moreso by the moon's light cast upon her silhouette, illuminating _his_ view, showing him her ecstasy as the shadows of his movements of passion danced across her skin.

Francis had never felt anything so wonderful.

Mary Stuart was, well, what wasn't she? She was this wild thing that had come into his otherwise routine life and showed him just how dull he'd been; just how much he hadn't been living.

She made him forget himself. Forget who he was.

And she made him just a _boy_; and in those moments, Francis felt as if he could be anything. Francis felt, as if something mattered. As if there was a thread of fate he could control.

_She made him feel like love was relevant. _

A jolt passed through him so painfully that he clutched his chest and gasped. He slowed his pace, finding the castle walls suffocating. Forgetting how to breathe within the waves of nausea that assaulted him. He found his knees buckling, his strength leaving him. Desperately, using the last semblance of his resolve, Francis staggered toward the nearest balcony. As soon as his hands clamped upon the cool stone and the night's air hit his face, Francis lurched, his body betraying him as he retched disgust, hurt, and bile into the open air. He gasped as if he were drowning, the pain in his chest relentless.

_Relentless_. Unwaivering.

_Crippling. This pain. This emotion. This Love_.

Is not Love supposed to be sweet? Isn't it supposed to be healing, wrapping around him a warmth that should spread completely within him? And yet it was so cruel. And yet, such a longing feeling left him struggling to stand, moisture gathering in the corners of his eyes as his stomach rejected something that was not held inside it.

Francis thought back to his previous thoughts of her. Of Mary. _His_ Mary - knowing that is whom she was, despite the decisions she had made against them, and _despite_ his claims to not forgive her (for he already did, having felt no grudge against her even from the start, and only laid claim to otherwise out of anger) - and of her as a rose laid upon of casket, and he laughed to himself when his retching finally stopped and he could gather a breath. The sound was hoarse and trembling, the action itself painful upon his raw throat, as he brought his equally shaking hands to his face, burying his face in his hands as he clawed at his hair and gripped it between his fingers.

Francis found truth in the image of her in his mind, though the truth was held in the new meaning that he found in it; because the Scottish queen was not a mere rose laid upon his casket, but that which had led him to lie inside it.

Yes, Mary _was_ to be the death of him, as she had so claimed, and he clearly saw that then, as he laughed at his foolishness.

_Foolish. So foolish._

She _would_ bring his death, but not because they would wed against all warnings, against all illogical omens.

Mary would be the death of Francis, not because _she_ loved _him_, but because _he_ loved _her_.

Love. It was what had already started its painstakingly slow process at claiming his life; its insignia always the same throughout history as the uniform shade of the liquid life that flowed through him; the same shade of liquid life that was violently spilling out from inside him.

Oh, how he desperately wished it would hurry its process.


End file.
